I live in a townhouse. Behind my townhouse is a “yard,” then some trees and foliage, and then what USED to be some sort of overgrown field. I’m not sure what was back there, I never ventured that far. I almost did one time when we thought Taco had gotten out (he was inside the couch) but nothing bad really ever seemed to come from back there either so I didn’t really pay it any mind. There are bunnies who come out and eat the grass and amuse the kitties by ignoring them completely. I had imagined they lived in the growth back behind the trees.

But this week, some big machine razed everything back there. I enjoyed the privacy that having NOTHING behind our house afforded, and the quiet. I don’t know what they’re going to do back there. But more importantly, I wonder what will happen to the bunnies?

I love Florida. I was born here. I grew up here. I inherited my mom’s passion for the nature here. So maybe that’s kinda hippie of me. I once watched my normally mild-mannered mother get out of her car and yell at people cutting down mangroves (it’s illegal, they protect against erosion).

So pardon me if I get annoyed every time one more patch of nature goes to shit. Florida isn’t that big, and there’s not that much left that’s not paved over. Even the beaches we’re so envied for, those aren’t real. They truck in the sand. Real Florida beaches are kind of like dirt sand. It’s still nice, it’s just not real. Palm trees are not native here. We have Palmettos (and hence Palmetto bugs, aka roaches, aka Florida’s state bird).

I get so pissed when there’s a commotion about an alligator venturing into someone’s house. Oh, golly gee, how dare he? Alligators are protected unless they’re “nuisances” and then they have to kill them. How is walking around in your natural habitat a nuisance? He doesn’t understand why the hell someone put a house there.

And the most heartbreaking. The Florida Panthers. They are incredibly beautiful animals. There’s so few of them left. Why? Because they keep trying to cross roads and get hit by cars. Because they keep putting *&$#*(#ing roads everywhere.

I don’t like my generation. I’m terrified of the generation after mine. I think we’re all a bunch of selfish a-holes who are ruining everything. So what if we didn’t make the hole in the Ozone? We know better now. If you’re reading this, I’m probably not talking to you, because it’s people who don’t read that scare me the most.

Aaaaand that’s my rant for the day.